232 { March, 
Notes on the egg and young larva of Thecla rubt.—The capture of the larva of 
this species by Messrs. W. H. Harwood and C. G. Barrett, enabled Mr. Buckler to 
describe it in various stages of growth at p. 38 of Vol. vi of E.M.M. And to the 
knowledge of its proper food-plant, thus obtained, I owe it that I am enabled now 
to offer a description of the egg. In former years I have shut up as many as 
twenty imagos at one time, and though I furnished them with blackberry buds and 
blossoms, as well as with other flowers and plants, I could never get an egg. But 
this last summer I caught a single wasted female, and having put her in a cylinder 
with a few twigs of broom (Cytisus scoparius), obtained from her half-a-dozen eggs 
immediately. 
‘The butterfly was caught, and the eggs laid on June 17th; the larvae were 
hatched on the 24th ; I have one or two notes of various moults, but finding by the 
middle of July that Mr. Buckler had already anticipated all that could be said after 
the larva had attained any size, I ceased from making any further record. 
The egg is roundish, full and globose, but with a central depression on the 
upper surface; green in colour, but covered all over with a reticulation of double 
white threads forming for the most part triangular meshes ; the central depression . 
is more faintly reticulated than the rest. Five out of six eggs were laid on the stems 
of the broom twigs. 
‘The newly-hatched larva is dirty-greenish in colour, with the head black, and 
is covered with hairs, which for its size may fairly be called long. Could I have 
found flowers of broom, my larvae would have fed better, and grown faster ; failing 
flowers, they ate young leaf-buds, and by July 9th, 1 see they had attained not 
much more than one-twelfth of an inch in length, and were very stumpy in pro- 
portion, being then brownish in colour, with a darker brown dorsal line bordered on 
each side by a row of yellowish streaks. After this the colour changed to green, 
and the whole appearance agreed as aforesaid with Mr. Buckler’s description.— 
J. Huxzins, Exeter, November 11th, 1870. 
Note on breeding Deilephila galii.At page 72 of his “ Lepidopterists’ Guide,” 
Dr. Kuaggs gives a receipt for forcing pupzx—recommended by the fact, that — 
Mr. Boswell Syme had, by it, succeeded in bringing out “ all—the galii, which he © 
“has at various times had the good fortune to meet with in the larval state ;” now, | 
though Mr. Boswell Syme reckons his galii by hundreds, and I reckon mine only by 
units, yet it may be of use to some of our friends to say that I have just succeeded 
in rearing, by this method, four moths from four pupee—all my stock. | 
1 began the forcing process a few days after Christmas, the first moth appeared 
on January 18th, the sécond on the 19th, the third on the 22nd, and the fourth on 
February 9th, all perfect and of fine colour. 
After this, I never mean to lose a Sphinx pupa again.—Wu. BuCKLER, Ems- | 
worth, February 11th, 1871. 
Abnormal appearance of Smerinthus populi.—A male specimen of this species 
rather astonished me by “ putting in an appearance” in one of my breeding-cages 
last month. The pupa from which it emerged was dug in September, and had been 
kept with several others of the same species in a cold room. What induced this 
one to come out so many months before his time ?—A. E. Hupp, Stapleton Road, 
Rristol, 10th January, 1871. 
